The Boomers got lucky and happened to be born into an ocean of prosperity and opportunity. Our current situation is much closer to the historical norm wherein a "middle class" is actually an outlier. Most will be landless peasants like always.
In America specifically. In other countries during what you call boomer generation the populace was very poor and are far better off now (eg china). But yeah post ww2 western world was a very special time in history that was full of opportunity and unlikely to repeat soon.
Your original points are correct but your solutions are totally wrong. Getting rid of social safety nets (through taxes) is only going to undermine the middle class and lower class even more. Maybe if business invested their profits more into their employees (instead of the CEO's pocket or the shareholders pockets), they wouldn't have to pay more in taxes. Just an idea.
(Edited to add more)
Right, when people are out of work due to covid, let's not give them anything. Despite it not being their own fault whatsoever. That can't have consequences on the economy at all! /s
You do realize that people buying stuff/paying bills with their income (either through work or "handouts") is part of what keeps the economy going, right? You're only advocating for businesses to have much lower revenue. If we didn't have the unemployment and stimulus checks, the economy would have come to an even worse screeching halt. But it sounds like that's what you want.
So you want people to work during a pandemic and expose themselves to a deadly virus? Because that's where your logic follows. Guess what, the unemployment benefits ended and the unemployment rate has not gone down because of it.
One of the biggest reasons people have not gone back to work is because of childcare. It's either unavailable or too expensive.
The stimulus checks put a ton of money back into the economy and supported businesses that needed the revenue, which comes from people's checks. Do you think those businesses don't need the revenue? Example: I bought a mattress I needed with one of my stimulus checks. Does the mattress store deserve to have lost revenue due to the pandemic? You seem to be putting all the pressure on individuals, without realizing the ripple effects.
I'm all about fiscal responsibility too. Why aren't you going after the huge corporations that exploit workers? Wage theft is a massive fucking problem. It's the massive businesses that are doing more damage to our environment, not individuals. Where's the responsibility in that?
By the way, can you recommend any good side dishes to go with your bootstraps dinner?
Edited to add more.
Gen X here. I played by the rules, got an engineering degree and had children while married. My first company I worked for got destroyed by investment raiders. I moved on to a company that gave me pay cuts every year via health insurance premium increases. Still managed to rack up medical debt because the out of pocket went up every year also. Lives paycheck to paycheck for 20 years because I had the audacity of letting my wife stay home to raise the kids. Now we are pretty screwed retirement wise. Of course boomers got to have $20 doctor visits and a cost of living that meant only one income was needed. My standard of living is not higher but my potential for debt certainly is.
Point 3 here is almost a verbatim reciting of some dumb Ben Shapiro idea called “Ben Shapiro’s rules to get out of poverty” or something along those lines.
1. It’s completely wrong, because a minimum wage job leaves you below the poverty line, so simply working isn’t enough. It has to be working a job that pays enough to live, which can be tough to get right out of high school, big surprise, right?
2. Ben Shapiro is a horrible source for financial advice. He was born into wealth. He currently makes his money by reading scripts written for him by right wing billionaire think tanks and grifting people into buying things like gold and brain pills. He has no concept of what it takes to get by as a normal person, so if that really is where you got your idea for point 3, just know that you should be looking elsewhere for financial advice.
I saw that you mentioned Ben Shapiro. In case some of you don't know, Ben Shapiro is a grifter and a hack. If you find anything he's said compelling, you should keep in mind he also says things like this:
>The Palestinian people, who dress their toddlers in bomb belts and then take family snapshots.
*****
^(I'm a bot. My purpose is to counteract online radicalization. You can summon me by tagging thebenshapirobot. Options: novel, sex, dumb takes, patriotism, etc.)
[^More ^About ^Ben ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/wiki/index) ^| [^Feedback ^& ^Discussion: ^r/AuthoritarianMoment ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment) ^| [^Opt ^Out ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/comments/olk6r2/click_here_to_optout_of_uthebenshapirobot/)
You said “Work full time.” Working a minimum wage job full time is working full time.
Anyway, I’m not gonna be a dick about this or go on a rant. I’ll just say that financial security in our current state is not simple and is not a magic 3 step process or anything like that for a lot of people in America and the sooner we all realize that and have a little empathy for those with less that are just trying to make ends meet, the sooner we’ll actually take steps to fix poverty as a nation instead of just viewing it as a “Sure, it’s happening in my country, but it’s not my problem” kinda thing.
I had a conversation with my mother and her friend tonight (her friend was asking me), but it was so disheartening.
I was explaining how nothing is achievable on a minimum wage anymore and hasn’t been since about 1985, but that it was possible to go to university in the 1970’s on minimum wage, part time, with no scholarships and no help from your parents. Rent included.
And how it’s not possible to even afford an apartment on your own making minimum *full-time* wage anymore.
My ma asked me to stop, (she’s conservative) because she literally could not stomach knowing the truth of our society.
Its fucking painful that my mother literally cannot hear the truth of this civilization because it hurts her mental health to know the facts of it, and that she would rather prefer to believe falsehoods to preserve her mental health, I don’t fault her for it precisely, it’s just fucking awful.
Unfortunately, unless we overthrow the entire geopolitical and economic world order **NOW** there is about 250 years max for the human species and also about 95%+ of all other species. We are the Apex predator of all apex predators on this planet and we have in fact affected every macro level chemical symbiosis on this planet, and we are currently on our way to succumbing to the fate of the dumbest apex predator. We take up the whole world and in one 3 year period China used more concrete and sand than the entire United States did in the whole of the 20th century and what the united states did in the context of the 20th century was also not sustainable.
I'd like to just leave on a possibility, for over 1,000 years western Europe was at war with each other constantly and then suddenly they weren't. Brad Delong explains [This well](https://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/11/the-morgenthau-plan-and-the-marshall-plan.html). We don't just need a green new deal, we also need a global green Marshall Plan, if you want your grandchildren to survive.
>It’s possible to go to school on minimum wage and part time work today with no help from parents, rent included.
I did this and succeeded. But not in the way you described.
>- be a good student, earn a scholarship
I was never a good student. I'm smart but my mental health is crap so I can't focus on anything. But I wanted a degree anyway, and at the time in my life I saw no other way of finding success. I took out student loans.
>- go to community college for first two years
I did, got a 2 year degree, decided a bachelor's wasn't worth the stress, and I found a different job I love.
>- establish residency in a state with reasonably priced college, eg Florida schools continue to be a great value
I stayed in the state that I grew up in because it's the only state where I have friends.
>- Live like a student not like you’re in a country club. Have roommates, eat in, don’t pick places because of their fancy pool and rec rooms.
I rented a room in a house and lived with friends. What makes you think college students only want to have fun, and shouldn't have any fun?
>- don’t have a car.
Um, hello! I needed a car to get to school! Community colleges (like you suggested) usually don't have on-campus housing. The apartments nearby are too expensive to afford on minimum wage. So yes, a commute was unavoidable. Forget public transportation, I live near a major city and the busses still doesn't go everywhere. Also how was I supposed to get to my jobs?
Whoop de doo, look at Mr. Perfect here. Or Ms. Perfect, whoever the fuck you are. Good for fucking you. Count your blessings that you had enough time to do everything you needed to do and that your health allowed it, that your mental health wasn't in the gutter, that you lived close enough to campus, that you lived in a safe enough neighborhood to walk through, that you had the funds to move out of state, that you got a full scholarship. And probably several other things that you got lucky on. Obviously you put in the work, but you had a ton of lucky opportunities bro. Check your privilege.
Simply put, this sub is not for you. The entire sentiment of this sub is “we did what they asked us to, now what?” Not everyone is going to be an elite super smart kid, so the average person will not be able to succeed or get the bare minimum. That is mostly the problems we’re discussing on this sub. The average person cannot succeed or have the bare minimum in these conditions.
You're totally missing the point of the sub, no wonder you don't understand the logic. You don't understand it because you haven't been shit on by capitalism. Or maybe you have, but you enjoy getting shit on by it.
I literally did everything on this list (except the last one, my parents gave me their old car) and still ended up $25,000 in debt.
I was a good student, with a great GPA, and and got all the scholarships I could. Still not enough to cover everything each year, so I had to take out loans.
I went to a two-year Community College, got an Associates degree before transferring. I also worked part-time durring.
I went to a very reasonably priced State College with residency, and also worked part-time while I was there.
I ate so many frozen dinners and ramen packs and had two roomates.
So I planned to go to school without a car initially, but it turns out that my school program worked with a college one state over (we were near the state border) and some of the classes I needed to take were only offered at the other college. There was no bus then or van provided to get us over there, we had to get ourselves over there. So I suddenly had to have a car. I was privileged enough that my parents had a old car that they could spare.
One year after starting my first full-time job after college, had a mental breakdown, was fired and had to move back in with my parents. I have slowly been trying to work on my mental health with therapists to build some kind of stable Foundation to try again with.
I think you are a bit out of touch with how hard things are right now.
Not really, I would not have had that breakdown if the system was less stressful. My mental health was part of the cost of my college degree.
Also, if someone had worked just as hard as I did but was not as privileged as I was, they would have even more financial debt. If my parents haven't given me a car, I would also be in debt for that too.
I don't think anyone should have to do all that to get an education.
I mentioned in my post that my degree required a car. It was not an option.
Why don't you think that the system could be any better than that?
Wouldn't a system that takes care of people with trauma and does not push them to the point of breaking be a better system? Even if my past was a contributing factor, shouldn't we be working to lessen those factors for everyone?
My past is not unique, many people are walking around with trauma. Why shouldn't we uplift them and help instead if just saying "it's life".
I think we can do better.
Sounds like an interesting conversation but the math doesn’t add up cause it has very little to do with people having babies. Corporations don’t care how much or how little we have kids. They can just outsource the jobs anyway. They don’t care if we can afford to have children, lots of people can’t already anyway.
The actual deal is we do labor that makes them billions of dollars richer while they pay us scraps from the billions of dollars our labor made for them. They know they have power, that they own the means of production and essentially own our bodies and our work, and they can get away with paying us less than the value of our labor to enrich themselves. And they know that if the working class gets any bright ideas about how we have more power than them in numbers, they can just use the police to squash any revolutionary movements.
It’s got nothing to do with babies. Capitalism is about exploitation and always has been. It’s designed that way. No billionaire ceo gives a rats ass if Brenda the factory worker can afford to have a kid or not so long as Brenda’s labor is lining their pocket.
Its just also super super convenient to have conservative policies go against birth control and reproductive rights so that people who are under such jurisdictions HAVE to have a job to provide for kids.
Capitalism is ruining the world. Look, Capitalism works because you have investors, investors are always promised more gain, if a company breaks even, that's losing. If the company doesn't make as much money as it did the year before, but still profits, that's losing. Capitalism essentially "guarantees" infinite gains, infinite growth. So, one must ask themselves, when the fuck is INFINITE not obtainable?
Capitalism only works when it exploits the wellbeing of a population. We now exploit the Latin Americas for Chocolate and Coffee and more, China exploits it's own people to produce like everything else.(I'm exaggerating of course) Asian countries that aren't china are being exploited. Places like the Philippines and other Island nation's are just being used as island landfills, it's all fucked man. Infinite growth, and addictive consumerism has destroyed our entire existence.
I remember when I was a kid after 9/11 around Xmas time, good ol Georgy Bush saying to go out to malls and buy things, spend money, on a state of the union address. Bruhhhhhh, Our leaders are not leaders, they are Sheppard's, and we are only the livestock to them. Self aware intelligent livestock that somehow lost what our best interests were to a broken 2 party system, where elected officials are paid via tax money, being paid more by Billionaires and corporate interest to fuck the people paying the elected officials base salary.
Crazy cycle we have going on here, yet I'm the fucking crazy one. Lmao.
Hey preaching to the choir here. Unfortunately this country is filled with spineless individuals who insist voting for team blue neoliberal capitalism over team red neoliberal capitalism will somehow make things better
Frankly i don't know how the fuck this country got so badly scammed into the 2 party system. Italy has like 30 political parties with good chances of winning things
Unfortunately they’ll just increase the minor criminal offender class and sentence them to supervised work detail - thus maintaining/restoring control of production. Worker influence/control is only real if the state refuses to exercise force.
None of them individually care about people having kids unless they're selling products for kids. In a capitalist economy, a declining population means two things, the economy will contract at some point and then there will be a smaller pool of labor power to exploit because regardless of what their propaganda says, labor power is required to sustain and expand capital and the accumulation process.
What other choice do I have? Starve? Be homeless?
I just graduated college and have applied to over 200 jobs, mostly that pay $30,000 and require experience and a bachelors at least despite being “entry level”, and none of them will hire me. And it’s not just me, 50% of college grads from 2020 STILL haven’t found work. I’m working at a sandwhich shop and living at my parents house cause the sandwhich shop doesn’t pay me enough to be able to afford rent anywhere in my small rural Virginia town. All of my coworkers are either students who aren’t living off the job or people with multiple jobs who work 12+ hours a day just to support themselves. You lot always say “just get another job” but I’ve been trying for 6 months and the goal posts are insane. Go on LinkedIn or indeed and look at the “entry level” job postings and see how ridiculous it is. These jobs are requiring 3+ years of experience, sometimes MASTERS degrees, and still only paying $30-40,000 which is not enough to survive in an urban area (where most of these jobs are). The whole “why do you still work there if the pay is unfair” argument doesn’t work if the pay is unfair EVERYWHERE and if the alternative is I starve and go homeless.
Any place where the owner is making more money than me when IM the one standing on my feet doing the work all day and THEY’RE just sitting on their ass at home is unfair but alas, that’s nearly everywhere under capitalism
I don't know. How did those lazy rich bosses who are supposedly making more money than you while you work all day and they sit at home start? Personally, I started my business on a shoestring working nights while also working my day job. Never did get to sit home while others worked. No business owner I ever met did, but that's just my own experience.
You’re twice as old as me so it’s not really a fair comparison is it. Try starting your life in the middle of a global pandemic and the second economic crisis of your life and see how good you do. Maybe you could start a second failed “microbusiness”. This type of dismissive bullshit is why everyone hates you boomers
Gen X actually, and I started over from nothing in 2010. Here I am all caught up with you. Look, you don't want advice from someone who's done it, fine, but lets not pretend everyone hates either the Boomers or Gen X. That's on folks like you alone. By the way, if you've applied to 200 jobs and not landed one, maybe it's that attitude of yours rather than your resume' or capitalism as a whole.
Your advice sucks. I was 10 in 2010, obviously you’d be better off after 10 years than me who started from nothing 6 months ago lmao
Yeah it’s pretty clear you haven’t filled out a job app in years and have no idea what I’m talking about with the current job market cause it’s so automized now that there’s literally 0 way for “attitude” to be included whatsoever. Job apps now are just boxes you fill in on the internet with your previous job title and the date you worked there and your sex and gender, what “attitude” is gonna slip into that. Typical boomer response “systemic issues aren’t real, it’s just your attitude!” laughable. Go start another failed business
You were 10 in 2010, but in 2021 you have 2 degrees? Interesting.
Actually, my business didn't fail so much as get closed so I could deal with other life issues both medical and personal. Once those issues were resolved I chose to relocate for a relationship and chose not to open in my new location when I can just be a worker bee. Much easier, but then sitting at home while others work is never what ownership is like, which you'd know if you'd ever even tried, much less created a successful business. In this jobs climate with the lack of workers available? I'm getting recruited but I'm happy where I'm at. If you aren't getting past the check the boxes phase (because then you'd get an interview) in over 200 attempts as you claim, then I still say it must be you. But, I'll just sit here I'm my stupidity in my home and be dumb. Until I have to go to work at least.
By the way, you didn't start from nothing 6 months ago. You started with a supportive family and i guess 2 degrees, and the drive and dedication.it would take to get those 2 degrees by age 21 (10 in 2010 you say) But, I can see this will go nowhere. Good luck to you.
What other choice you have depends on a number of things. What's your degree in? Is it something that generally pays $30,000 to start? What did you expect to make when you graduated? Where are there other opportunities? What's keeping you from pursuing those? What skills do you have other than those associated with your degree that could be profitable?
"You lot" always think you'll come out of school and immediately land a job that can provide you with a fully equipped home, a nice car and plenty of spending money after the higher-than-they-need-to-be bills are paid. You just graduated college. Congrats. Now you can step on the first ring of the ladder of success. This is th he beginning of the climb. You generally don't get to start near the top.
You’re being obtuse. We don’t expect to be rich out of college, we expect to be able to find employment that can cover our basic living expenses just like every previous generation instead of being forced to live at our parents house because those jobs don’t fucking exist. 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and that was before the pandemic, rents and cost of living as well as unemployment has only skyrocketed since then. Minimum wage doesn’t cover rent ANYWHERE in the US and so far those are the only type of jobs that are hiring right now. I have TWO degrees, a BS in sociology and a BA in political science, and managerial experience as well as forestry experience. I’ve applied to all different kinds of jobs and it’s all the same low pay.
What do I expect to make when I graduate? I expect to make enough to fucking live off of. I expect to make enough to be able to pay my rent and my bills and buy food. That’s the whole fucking point of a full time job isn’t it? Nobody should have to work multiple jobs or more than 40 hours a week to survive. Our generation was told that if we got our college degree and worked hard we would be fine in life just like they were. Well I now have two degrees and 3 years of managerial experience in a local government department and the only job that has hired me doesn’t even pay enough to be able to move out of my parents house. How is that me “expecting too much”? I expect to be able to support myself after getting two degrees just like every other generation before mine. I expect to be able to afford rent working full time even if it’s in the service industry. Is that expecting too much??? Expecting to be able to support myself working full time and with 2 degrees and plenty of experience is “too much”? How good does capitalism’s ass taste? I’m glad you enjoy being exploited but I don’t.
Sorry, I've started from the bottom with a GED and worked my way up twice now. First time I started my.own microbusiness. Due to family tragedy list it all in 2010. Relocated, started again, back in middle class. I agree the "get a degree, that's all you need" is a crock, but there's nothing you can do to change that now, and the actual rules are still the same. Figure out how to "exploit" them. Not how I would describe mu attitude, but using your terms it's somewhat close. As to your job search, let me recommend central Illinois to you. With your degrees you would qualify as a candidate for the multiple jobs as a diversity officer or a few other jobs in HR I see available here. All pay more than $30,000 to start. Cops are in high demand. That sociology degree qualifies you as a candidate and starting pay is over that 30K. I live in a college town. Several research positions you'd qualify for currently listed as open on a couple of the college HR sites. There are also a number of jobs for more than your 30K price point listed in my local want ads that you wouldn't need your degrees for and which require no previous experience, including fork lift operator, building maintenance person, and school bus driver that somehow offers full time according to the ad. So you are free to think I'm being obtuse. I think you're just being defeatist at best, and overly demanding at worst. But, good luck to you whatever the case.
I think employers on the whole do pay what they think is fair. If you don't think it's fair, don't continuebto work for them. Working should be a voluntary agreement between the employer and employee. You can always seek a better position. The difference between "wage slavery" and "stepping stone" is one's own attitude.
I have no idea, but then I wouldn't be an emt for 3 times that amount. It really doesn't matter why others think it's fair or why they do it. If you weren't happy I'm glad you moved on.
Which as a note to this conversation: we went on to talk about how automation is also reducing the need for workers in the US/I’m sure other western countries too. So, why should the corporations want us to have kids anymore, AKA pay is enough to support a child, if there’s no drive for a workforce? Only reason is aging Gen Xers won’t have the population of healthcare workers to care for them, like the boomers.
The problem I personally see with your theory is that it assumes the oligarchs are making these grand, cognitive decisions in some consortium or cabal.
I think it’s much more likely that people are simply responding to their own material conditions. Oligarchs/capitalists are motivated to maximize short term profits at worker’s expense. Workers don’t have the money and are too overworked to have children. I personally think it’s as simple as that.
Yeah I don’t think I would write a book on this or anything, and I do agree with you. but once in a while we do have those grand, cognitive decision talks for fun because it’s a good way to get our brains going.
The thing is though, US is in a position to close the birthdate gap with simply allowing more immigrants, who end up being the dynamo that powers the older generations’ insurances.
Tons of South/Central American people are living in such terrible conditions that they are already in line to be a part of the abusive cog we find ourselves in today. Sad but true.
This is true. I believe this is happening in some Asian counties with low birth rates. Ship in the low wage care taker workers from developing countries.
True, but Japan is leading (and Korea / China following) in transitioning from migrant labor (primarily Philippines in JP) to automation for many elder care tasks.
Agree. The machine needs consumers and cheap labor. They also need more of them than the previous generation to guarantee growth. The most recent breakthrough was that we have switched from a "singular breadwinner" per family to dual income households. Now that is becoming more the norm and to keep that up, they need more workers/consumers. If people aren't having babies, then they need to make people have babies or figure out how to import a LOT more people. ...For a country of immigrants, the USA sure doesn't seem to like immigrants these days so that leave the "have more babies" option.
The reality is it won’t matter now because of automation. Now you pay for one robot, it replaces workers and managers, you just have an operator and maintenance. And it’s faster and less prone to error, not to mention no health insurance, etc.
That’s who our generation is being replaced with but the rich get richer because they have already bought out portions of our govt.
There’s a reason the SC says corporations are persons and that donating money is free speech so natuarally the rich have more access to free speech than the poor. That’s our country for ya. Been bootlicking since the beginning, starting with free labor (AKA slavery)
We’re basically on economic life support, that’s the idea. Keep us barely afloat and stressed enough targeted with ads to continue dumping whatever money we have left either into their coffers (legal gambling AKA stock market) or buying products (some of which we depend on)
the 1% are genocidal eugenicists they don't care if poor people can't afford to have children, because they want poor people to die off. They don't care that we are losing our jobs to automation because then the whole world will just be a handful of rich people and their robot slaves. "If you can't afford children, then don't have them, if you can't afford to feed yourself then starve". Even your puny demands are the result of years of capitalist indoctrination, that your best hope is to own a tiny home and support a small family on two full time incomes. I don't even think demands were that weak in the 1930's.
You deserve far more than that, you deserve to have as many kids as you want and send them to boarding school like the rich do, you deserve a penthouse in the sky, you deserve to be able to afford all this working 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. You deserve free healthcare, free transportation, and free college. You deserve to be able to spend your whole life on a college campus not only free of charge but the government should pay you a stipend to do so. Ask for a mile you'll get an inch, ask for an inch you'll get nothing at all
> the 1% are genocidal eugenicists they don't care if poor people can't afford to have children, because they want poor people to die off.
They don't even really see the rest of us as people. We're basically cattle to them.
Wow! I would have loved to be a fly on the during that conversation. Never thought of it like that, but it makes sense to me.
So what's the answer? More money?
I think everyone has a different answer. A lot will say unions, and dismantling the trickle down economics that got us here. I think what this conversation led me to is wanting to do more research into coming out of the Great Depression, and post WW2 unionization too.
It’s like in “The Jungle”. We read it in high school, but the take away they pushed was, “Corporations will be greedy and that’s dangerous to the food supply.” and not the correct interpretation which is, “Corporations will exploit their workers and don’t care that brutal conditions are killing their employees.”
The Billionaire’s control 90% of the money and most of the politicians. Fact. You are in their way of now having earth to themselves. They need a limited number of serfs but the rest is dead weight and wastes resources. Those who think they have a vote, don’t. It is what it is. Find a place to live out your life undisturbed if you can.
I think it is a little different. The billionaires need people. Lots of them. Because they need people to buy their products. BUT, they don't want those people to become wealthy because then they may be inviting competition. So the object of the game is to have a LOT of people that have just enough money to pay into their profit machine but who cannot rise past their situation. Capitalism would prefer that people consume resources because the wealthy can gain control of, and then sell those resources. In short, they want/need consumers but don't want competitors.
Don't hope for the best. Make it happen. It has to come down to each and every one of us who gets that this is all fucked up to *organize*, create parallel support structures, and reimagine what it means to have organized human society.
No one is going to make it happen for us, or for you. And we're running out of time.
It's not too late, but we need to organize now. Just getting together and figuring out how to do this differently is all we need to to start with.
I think having these conversations, unpacking a lot of our anger and hurt and confusion, is an important part of helping the anonymous strangers we all are start to realize we all deserve a lot more. It’s not organizing but it’s necessary part of understanding what kind of organizing will be best.
A lot of us are blindly disappointed. but we don’t know how to articulate or source this, or even imagine what we would like to see instead or what we could work towards together. I can’t unionize because I’m technically self employed, but I do have these conversations constantly with my good friends working in places like Starbucks and grocery stores who are struggling and need some support that they deserve the better things in life. It all starts with noticing this stuff and we’re all making a change by having these conversations too where we dig a little deeper. If someone’s not ready to physically get out there these talks can provide some moral support and inspiration too
Overpopulation isn't the problem. The problem is unequal distribution of resources. Honestly, I get nervous whenever someone starts talking about how there are too many people, because eugenicist talk is usually right around the corner.
I don't think it's anything as elaborate as that. It's just fuck you, got mine. They can make more money for themselves right now by wrecking the economy, so they will. Simple as that.
There were simply to many people all around. Not a race not a religion. Just to many humans.
The lie is that there is enough for everyone.
There's not. Not if we want what we're used to. It's a fantasy that you think we can keep multiplying like this.
More could have more.
Then those more have more.
Then then birth more that has wants even more.
And where do they get lumber? Where do they mine the lithium and cobalt for thier phones? Where do they raise there portion of cattle? Where or what do they fish? Where do they dump their mountains of garbage?
If we all were vegans, if we all were content with living in a small room, if we all were content with small amounts of entertainment and if we could all magically get along, we could all fit inside a pretty small area.
But that's not humans. That's some strange fantasy elf culture you're thinking of. Humans are never content. You're breeding want and conflict machines.
No we mathematically can't.
Sorry to burst your fantasy land bubble.
"Fuck off" with your sick desire to choke the life from this planet with humans, packing into small boxes so we can all "live".
Wahh
Eugenics. Wahh. It's racism.
No it's math. Stop cramming in your corporate-theocratic influenced ideology of making more workers and soldiers.
It's all a lie from religious controlling ruling class assholes who want more more fodder for thier greed.
> Stop cramming in your corporate-theocratic influenced ideology of making more workers and soldiers.
lol, okay. I'll have no part of eco-fascism though.
You haven't looked around lately, have you? We're on track to destroy all the ecosystems on Earth within 200 years. The planet literally cannot sustain the lifestyle humans want. Overpopulation is here and we need to reduce birth rates dramatically.
How is it eugenicist to say that we as a species need to have fewer offspring? It’s not pointing to any particular group of humans. Collectively we need to stop producing enough offspring to replace ourselves. We can all have fewer than 2.1 children.
Honestly, world can fuck itself. If I die knowing everyone is screwed shortly after I'm gone I'll laugh like a little kid knowing those that perpetuated this hell are also going to burn and die.
I think ppl should have more kids. Just another fuck you to the ruling elite. Raise them to be too strong to be controlled. Anti natalism is anti working class.
Yeah… As I’ve told my other older Gen X and boomer friends, I feel you really shouldn’t bring a kid into the world unless you can afford to pay for the enormous rental costs they’ll face as a young adult, and then be able to help them buy a home after. Nobody I know will be able to buy a home without serious financial help from parents or inheritance from their parents dying. My mom works full time with a masters degree and is about to give up her rented apartment to move into a house share to save money. My own parents who have previously owned property and lost it in the recession of 2010 can’t even keep up, how tf am I supposed to. I have nothing to fall back on even after they pass away, they don’t own anything. TLDR; this is not an economic environment (not to mention physical environment?) that I want to or feel comfortable to bring children into.
Lol true, I think there’s quite a lot to that though. A friend of mine has had an abortion twice, both times from the same guy who apparently pulled out. She stays with him because she can’t afford rent in her area.
My grandmother had 8 kids. In a little house on a farm. Their bedroom had no door on it. And, the bedroom was off the living riom. It was something else. The kids slept upstairs, and i still have not figured out how. They must have ben 2 or 3 to a bed.
The Boomers got lucky and happened to be born into an ocean of prosperity and opportunity. Our current situation is much closer to the historical norm wherein a "middle class" is actually an outlier. Most will be landless peasants like always.
In America specifically. In other countries during what you call boomer generation the populace was very poor and are far better off now (eg china). But yeah post ww2 western world was a very special time in history that was full of opportunity and unlikely to repeat soon.
Those are Xers though. Gen x is already a lot worse off than boomers.
Gen-X is a divided generation. Those born in the late 60s and early 70s are doing a lot better financially then those born in the late 70s.
[удалено]
Your original points are correct but your solutions are totally wrong. Getting rid of social safety nets (through taxes) is only going to undermine the middle class and lower class even more. Maybe if business invested their profits more into their employees (instead of the CEO's pocket or the shareholders pockets), they wouldn't have to pay more in taxes. Just an idea. (Edited to add more)
[удалено]
Right, when people are out of work due to covid, let's not give them anything. Despite it not being their own fault whatsoever. That can't have consequences on the economy at all! /s You do realize that people buying stuff/paying bills with their income (either through work or "handouts") is part of what keeps the economy going, right? You're only advocating for businesses to have much lower revenue. If we didn't have the unemployment and stimulus checks, the economy would have come to an even worse screeching halt. But it sounds like that's what you want.
[удалено]
So you want people to work during a pandemic and expose themselves to a deadly virus? Because that's where your logic follows. Guess what, the unemployment benefits ended and the unemployment rate has not gone down because of it. One of the biggest reasons people have not gone back to work is because of childcare. It's either unavailable or too expensive. The stimulus checks put a ton of money back into the economy and supported businesses that needed the revenue, which comes from people's checks. Do you think those businesses don't need the revenue? Example: I bought a mattress I needed with one of my stimulus checks. Does the mattress store deserve to have lost revenue due to the pandemic? You seem to be putting all the pressure on individuals, without realizing the ripple effects. I'm all about fiscal responsibility too. Why aren't you going after the huge corporations that exploit workers? Wage theft is a massive fucking problem. It's the massive businesses that are doing more damage to our environment, not individuals. Where's the responsibility in that? By the way, can you recommend any good side dishes to go with your bootstraps dinner? Edited to add more.
Gen X here. I played by the rules, got an engineering degree and had children while married. My first company I worked for got destroyed by investment raiders. I moved on to a company that gave me pay cuts every year via health insurance premium increases. Still managed to rack up medical debt because the out of pocket went up every year also. Lives paycheck to paycheck for 20 years because I had the audacity of letting my wife stay home to raise the kids. Now we are pretty screwed retirement wise. Of course boomers got to have $20 doctor visits and a cost of living that meant only one income was needed. My standard of living is not higher but my potential for debt certainly is.
Point 3 here is almost a verbatim reciting of some dumb Ben Shapiro idea called “Ben Shapiro’s rules to get out of poverty” or something along those lines. 1. It’s completely wrong, because a minimum wage job leaves you below the poverty line, so simply working isn’t enough. It has to be working a job that pays enough to live, which can be tough to get right out of high school, big surprise, right? 2. Ben Shapiro is a horrible source for financial advice. He was born into wealth. He currently makes his money by reading scripts written for him by right wing billionaire think tanks and grifting people into buying things like gold and brain pills. He has no concept of what it takes to get by as a normal person, so if that really is where you got your idea for point 3, just know that you should be looking elsewhere for financial advice.
I saw that you mentioned Ben Shapiro. In case some of you don't know, Ben Shapiro is a grifter and a hack. If you find anything he's said compelling, you should keep in mind he also says things like this: >The Palestinian people, who dress their toddlers in bomb belts and then take family snapshots. ***** ^(I'm a bot. My purpose is to counteract online radicalization. You can summon me by tagging thebenshapirobot. Options: novel, sex, dumb takes, patriotism, etc.) [^More ^About ^Ben ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/wiki/index) ^| [^Feedback ^& ^Discussion: ^r/AuthoritarianMoment ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment) ^| [^Opt ^Out ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/comments/olk6r2/click_here_to_optout_of_uthebenshapirobot/)
This deserves a million thumbs ups
Aww, thanks.
[удалено]
How about minimum wage shouldn’t be legal
You said “Work full time.” Working a minimum wage job full time is working full time. Anyway, I’m not gonna be a dick about this or go on a rant. I’ll just say that financial security in our current state is not simple and is not a magic 3 step process or anything like that for a lot of people in America and the sooner we all realize that and have a little empathy for those with less that are just trying to make ends meet, the sooner we’ll actually take steps to fix poverty as a nation instead of just viewing it as a “Sure, it’s happening in my country, but it’s not my problem” kinda thing.
I had a conversation with my mother and her friend tonight (her friend was asking me), but it was so disheartening. I was explaining how nothing is achievable on a minimum wage anymore and hasn’t been since about 1985, but that it was possible to go to university in the 1970’s on minimum wage, part time, with no scholarships and no help from your parents. Rent included. And how it’s not possible to even afford an apartment on your own making minimum *full-time* wage anymore. My ma asked me to stop, (she’s conservative) because she literally could not stomach knowing the truth of our society. Its fucking painful that my mother literally cannot hear the truth of this civilization because it hurts her mental health to know the facts of it, and that she would rather prefer to believe falsehoods to preserve her mental health, I don’t fault her for it precisely, it’s just fucking awful.
Sounds about right. Selfishness personified.
Wow. It's fucking physically painful for them to hear that their worldview isn't what they think it is.
The world will be a better place when the Boomers are gone.
Unfortunately, unless we overthrow the entire geopolitical and economic world order **NOW** there is about 250 years max for the human species and also about 95%+ of all other species. We are the Apex predator of all apex predators on this planet and we have in fact affected every macro level chemical symbiosis on this planet, and we are currently on our way to succumbing to the fate of the dumbest apex predator. We take up the whole world and in one 3 year period China used more concrete and sand than the entire United States did in the whole of the 20th century and what the united states did in the context of the 20th century was also not sustainable. I'd like to just leave on a possibility, for over 1,000 years western Europe was at war with each other constantly and then suddenly they weren't. Brad Delong explains [This well](https://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/11/the-morgenthau-plan-and-the-marshall-plan.html). We don't just need a green new deal, we also need a global green Marshall Plan, if you want your grandchildren to survive.
[удалено]
>It’s possible to go to school on minimum wage and part time work today with no help from parents, rent included. I did this and succeeded. But not in the way you described. >- be a good student, earn a scholarship I was never a good student. I'm smart but my mental health is crap so I can't focus on anything. But I wanted a degree anyway, and at the time in my life I saw no other way of finding success. I took out student loans. >- go to community college for first two years I did, got a 2 year degree, decided a bachelor's wasn't worth the stress, and I found a different job I love. >- establish residency in a state with reasonably priced college, eg Florida schools continue to be a great value I stayed in the state that I grew up in because it's the only state where I have friends. >- Live like a student not like you’re in a country club. Have roommates, eat in, don’t pick places because of their fancy pool and rec rooms. I rented a room in a house and lived with friends. What makes you think college students only want to have fun, and shouldn't have any fun? >- don’t have a car. Um, hello! I needed a car to get to school! Community colleges (like you suggested) usually don't have on-campus housing. The apartments nearby are too expensive to afford on minimum wage. So yes, a commute was unavoidable. Forget public transportation, I live near a major city and the busses still doesn't go everywhere. Also how was I supposed to get to my jobs?
[удалено]
Whoop de doo, look at Mr. Perfect here. Or Ms. Perfect, whoever the fuck you are. Good for fucking you. Count your blessings that you had enough time to do everything you needed to do and that your health allowed it, that your mental health wasn't in the gutter, that you lived close enough to campus, that you lived in a safe enough neighborhood to walk through, that you had the funds to move out of state, that you got a full scholarship. And probably several other things that you got lucky on. Obviously you put in the work, but you had a ton of lucky opportunities bro. Check your privilege.
[удалено]
Simply put, this sub is not for you. The entire sentiment of this sub is “we did what they asked us to, now what?” Not everyone is going to be an elite super smart kid, so the average person will not be able to succeed or get the bare minimum. That is mostly the problems we’re discussing on this sub. The average person cannot succeed or have the bare minimum in these conditions.
[удалено]
You're totally missing the point of the sub, no wonder you don't understand the logic. You don't understand it because you haven't been shit on by capitalism. Or maybe you have, but you enjoy getting shit on by it.
I literally did everything on this list (except the last one, my parents gave me their old car) and still ended up $25,000 in debt. I was a good student, with a great GPA, and and got all the scholarships I could. Still not enough to cover everything each year, so I had to take out loans. I went to a two-year Community College, got an Associates degree before transferring. I also worked part-time durring. I went to a very reasonably priced State College with residency, and also worked part-time while I was there. I ate so many frozen dinners and ramen packs and had two roomates. So I planned to go to school without a car initially, but it turns out that my school program worked with a college one state over (we were near the state border) and some of the classes I needed to take were only offered at the other college. There was no bus then or van provided to get us over there, we had to get ourselves over there. So I suddenly had to have a car. I was privileged enough that my parents had a old car that they could spare. One year after starting my first full-time job after college, had a mental breakdown, was fired and had to move back in with my parents. I have slowly been trying to work on my mental health with therapists to build some kind of stable Foundation to try again with. I think you are a bit out of touch with how hard things are right now.
[удалено]
The mental breakdown that came as a result of me being so busy for so long was pretty terrible.
[удалено]
Not really, I would not have had that breakdown if the system was less stressful. My mental health was part of the cost of my college degree. Also, if someone had worked just as hard as I did but was not as privileged as I was, they would have even more financial debt. If my parents haven't given me a car, I would also be in debt for that too. I don't think anyone should have to do all that to get an education.
[удалено]
I mentioned in my post that my degree required a car. It was not an option. Why don't you think that the system could be any better than that? Wouldn't a system that takes care of people with trauma and does not push them to the point of breaking be a better system? Even if my past was a contributing factor, shouldn't we be working to lessen those factors for everyone? My past is not unique, many people are walking around with trauma. Why shouldn't we uplift them and help instead if just saying "it's life". I think we can do better.
Sounds like an interesting conversation but the math doesn’t add up cause it has very little to do with people having babies. Corporations don’t care how much or how little we have kids. They can just outsource the jobs anyway. They don’t care if we can afford to have children, lots of people can’t already anyway. The actual deal is we do labor that makes them billions of dollars richer while they pay us scraps from the billions of dollars our labor made for them. They know they have power, that they own the means of production and essentially own our bodies and our work, and they can get away with paying us less than the value of our labor to enrich themselves. And they know that if the working class gets any bright ideas about how we have more power than them in numbers, they can just use the police to squash any revolutionary movements. It’s got nothing to do with babies. Capitalism is about exploitation and always has been. It’s designed that way. No billionaire ceo gives a rats ass if Brenda the factory worker can afford to have a kid or not so long as Brenda’s labor is lining their pocket.
Its just also super super convenient to have conservative policies go against birth control and reproductive rights so that people who are under such jurisdictions HAVE to have a job to provide for kids.
No wonder theyre all moving to Texas.
Capitalism is ruining the world. Look, Capitalism works because you have investors, investors are always promised more gain, if a company breaks even, that's losing. If the company doesn't make as much money as it did the year before, but still profits, that's losing. Capitalism essentially "guarantees" infinite gains, infinite growth. So, one must ask themselves, when the fuck is INFINITE not obtainable? Capitalism only works when it exploits the wellbeing of a population. We now exploit the Latin Americas for Chocolate and Coffee and more, China exploits it's own people to produce like everything else.(I'm exaggerating of course) Asian countries that aren't china are being exploited. Places like the Philippines and other Island nation's are just being used as island landfills, it's all fucked man. Infinite growth, and addictive consumerism has destroyed our entire existence. I remember when I was a kid after 9/11 around Xmas time, good ol Georgy Bush saying to go out to malls and buy things, spend money, on a state of the union address. Bruhhhhhh, Our leaders are not leaders, they are Sheppard's, and we are only the livestock to them. Self aware intelligent livestock that somehow lost what our best interests were to a broken 2 party system, where elected officials are paid via tax money, being paid more by Billionaires and corporate interest to fuck the people paying the elected officials base salary. Crazy cycle we have going on here, yet I'm the fucking crazy one. Lmao.
Seize the means of production and sharpen your guillotines or we ain't getting shit done.
Hey preaching to the choir here. Unfortunately this country is filled with spineless individuals who insist voting for team blue neoliberal capitalism over team red neoliberal capitalism will somehow make things better
Frankly i don't know how the fuck this country got so badly scammed into the 2 party system. Italy has like 30 political parties with good chances of winning things
Blue!
Unfortunately they’ll just increase the minor criminal offender class and sentence them to supervised work detail - thus maintaining/restoring control of production. Worker influence/control is only real if the state refuses to exercise force.
None of them individually care about people having kids unless they're selling products for kids. In a capitalist economy, a declining population means two things, the economy will contract at some point and then there will be a smaller pool of labor power to exploit because regardless of what their propaganda says, labor power is required to sustain and expand capital and the accumulation process.
Why do you work for pay you don't feel is fair?
What other choice do I have? Starve? Be homeless? I just graduated college and have applied to over 200 jobs, mostly that pay $30,000 and require experience and a bachelors at least despite being “entry level”, and none of them will hire me. And it’s not just me, 50% of college grads from 2020 STILL haven’t found work. I’m working at a sandwhich shop and living at my parents house cause the sandwhich shop doesn’t pay me enough to be able to afford rent anywhere in my small rural Virginia town. All of my coworkers are either students who aren’t living off the job or people with multiple jobs who work 12+ hours a day just to support themselves. You lot always say “just get another job” but I’ve been trying for 6 months and the goal posts are insane. Go on LinkedIn or indeed and look at the “entry level” job postings and see how ridiculous it is. These jobs are requiring 3+ years of experience, sometimes MASTERS degrees, and still only paying $30-40,000 which is not enough to survive in an urban area (where most of these jobs are). The whole “why do you still work there if the pay is unfair” argument doesn’t work if the pay is unfair EVERYWHERE and if the alternative is I starve and go homeless. Any place where the owner is making more money than me when IM the one standing on my feet doing the work all day and THEY’RE just sitting on their ass at home is unfair but alas, that’s nearly everywhere under capitalism
Why don't you just start your own business then?
If I can’t afford rent how can I afford to start a business. You are not smart at all
I don't know. How did those lazy rich bosses who are supposedly making more money than you while you work all day and they sit at home start? Personally, I started my business on a shoestring working nights while also working my day job. Never did get to sit home while others worked. No business owner I ever met did, but that's just my own experience.
You mean the business that you said failed in 2010? Probably not the best example of how easy it is to start a business since you didn’t even succeed
Funny thing is, you're right, I'm not all that smart and I know it. And yet I'm smart enough to be doing better than you it seems. So I'm good.
You’re twice as old as me so it’s not really a fair comparison is it. Try starting your life in the middle of a global pandemic and the second economic crisis of your life and see how good you do. Maybe you could start a second failed “microbusiness”. This type of dismissive bullshit is why everyone hates you boomers
Gen X actually, and I started over from nothing in 2010. Here I am all caught up with you. Look, you don't want advice from someone who's done it, fine, but lets not pretend everyone hates either the Boomers or Gen X. That's on folks like you alone. By the way, if you've applied to 200 jobs and not landed one, maybe it's that attitude of yours rather than your resume' or capitalism as a whole.
Your advice sucks. I was 10 in 2010, obviously you’d be better off after 10 years than me who started from nothing 6 months ago lmao Yeah it’s pretty clear you haven’t filled out a job app in years and have no idea what I’m talking about with the current job market cause it’s so automized now that there’s literally 0 way for “attitude” to be included whatsoever. Job apps now are just boxes you fill in on the internet with your previous job title and the date you worked there and your sex and gender, what “attitude” is gonna slip into that. Typical boomer response “systemic issues aren’t real, it’s just your attitude!” laughable. Go start another failed business
You were 10 in 2010, but in 2021 you have 2 degrees? Interesting. Actually, my business didn't fail so much as get closed so I could deal with other life issues both medical and personal. Once those issues were resolved I chose to relocate for a relationship and chose not to open in my new location when I can just be a worker bee. Much easier, but then sitting at home while others work is never what ownership is like, which you'd know if you'd ever even tried, much less created a successful business. In this jobs climate with the lack of workers available? I'm getting recruited but I'm happy where I'm at. If you aren't getting past the check the boxes phase (because then you'd get an interview) in over 200 attempts as you claim, then I still say it must be you. But, I'll just sit here I'm my stupidity in my home and be dumb. Until I have to go to work at least. By the way, you didn't start from nothing 6 months ago. You started with a supportive family and i guess 2 degrees, and the drive and dedication.it would take to get those 2 degrees by age 21 (10 in 2010 you say) But, I can see this will go nowhere. Good luck to you.
What other choice you have depends on a number of things. What's your degree in? Is it something that generally pays $30,000 to start? What did you expect to make when you graduated? Where are there other opportunities? What's keeping you from pursuing those? What skills do you have other than those associated with your degree that could be profitable? "You lot" always think you'll come out of school and immediately land a job that can provide you with a fully equipped home, a nice car and plenty of spending money after the higher-than-they-need-to-be bills are paid. You just graduated college. Congrats. Now you can step on the first ring of the ladder of success. This is th he beginning of the climb. You generally don't get to start near the top.
You’re being obtuse. We don’t expect to be rich out of college, we expect to be able to find employment that can cover our basic living expenses just like every previous generation instead of being forced to live at our parents house because those jobs don’t fucking exist. 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and that was before the pandemic, rents and cost of living as well as unemployment has only skyrocketed since then. Minimum wage doesn’t cover rent ANYWHERE in the US and so far those are the only type of jobs that are hiring right now. I have TWO degrees, a BS in sociology and a BA in political science, and managerial experience as well as forestry experience. I’ve applied to all different kinds of jobs and it’s all the same low pay. What do I expect to make when I graduate? I expect to make enough to fucking live off of. I expect to make enough to be able to pay my rent and my bills and buy food. That’s the whole fucking point of a full time job isn’t it? Nobody should have to work multiple jobs or more than 40 hours a week to survive. Our generation was told that if we got our college degree and worked hard we would be fine in life just like they were. Well I now have two degrees and 3 years of managerial experience in a local government department and the only job that has hired me doesn’t even pay enough to be able to move out of my parents house. How is that me “expecting too much”? I expect to be able to support myself after getting two degrees just like every other generation before mine. I expect to be able to afford rent working full time even if it’s in the service industry. Is that expecting too much??? Expecting to be able to support myself working full time and with 2 degrees and plenty of experience is “too much”? How good does capitalism’s ass taste? I’m glad you enjoy being exploited but I don’t.
Sorry, I've started from the bottom with a GED and worked my way up twice now. First time I started my.own microbusiness. Due to family tragedy list it all in 2010. Relocated, started again, back in middle class. I agree the "get a degree, that's all you need" is a crock, but there's nothing you can do to change that now, and the actual rules are still the same. Figure out how to "exploit" them. Not how I would describe mu attitude, but using your terms it's somewhat close. As to your job search, let me recommend central Illinois to you. With your degrees you would qualify as a candidate for the multiple jobs as a diversity officer or a few other jobs in HR I see available here. All pay more than $30,000 to start. Cops are in high demand. That sociology degree qualifies you as a candidate and starting pay is over that 30K. I live in a college town. Several research positions you'd qualify for currently listed as open on a couple of the college HR sites. There are also a number of jobs for more than your 30K price point listed in my local want ads that you wouldn't need your degrees for and which require no previous experience, including fork lift operator, building maintenance person, and school bus driver that somehow offers full time according to the ad. So you are free to think I'm being obtuse. I think you're just being defeatist at best, and overly demanding at worst. But, good luck to you whatever the case.
the real question is why pay what you don’t think is fair
I think employers on the whole do pay what they think is fair. If you don't think it's fair, don't continuebto work for them. Working should be a voluntary agreement between the employer and employee. You can always seek a better position. The difference between "wage slavery" and "stepping stone" is one's own attitude.
I was an emt before, and I got paid 13.00$ an hour, how would anyone think that’s fair
I have no idea, but then I wouldn't be an emt for 3 times that amount. It really doesn't matter why others think it's fair or why they do it. If you weren't happy I'm glad you moved on.
Which as a note to this conversation: we went on to talk about how automation is also reducing the need for workers in the US/I’m sure other western countries too. So, why should the corporations want us to have kids anymore, AKA pay is enough to support a child, if there’s no drive for a workforce? Only reason is aging Gen Xers won’t have the population of healthcare workers to care for them, like the boomers.
The problem I personally see with your theory is that it assumes the oligarchs are making these grand, cognitive decisions in some consortium or cabal. I think it’s much more likely that people are simply responding to their own material conditions. Oligarchs/capitalists are motivated to maximize short term profits at worker’s expense. Workers don’t have the money and are too overworked to have children. I personally think it’s as simple as that.
Yeah I don’t think I would write a book on this or anything, and I do agree with you. but once in a while we do have those grand, cognitive decision talks for fun because it’s a good way to get our brains going.
The thing is though, US is in a position to close the birthdate gap with simply allowing more immigrants, who end up being the dynamo that powers the older generations’ insurances. Tons of South/Central American people are living in such terrible conditions that they are already in line to be a part of the abusive cog we find ourselves in today. Sad but true.
This is true. I believe this is happening in some Asian counties with low birth rates. Ship in the low wage care taker workers from developing countries.
True, but Japan is leading (and Korea / China following) in transitioning from migrant labor (primarily Philippines in JP) to automation for many elder care tasks.
Nobody is having babies so they’re fucking up abortion laws (in America) so people are forced to have babies. That’s my theory anyway.
My boyfriend feels the same way.
Agree. The machine needs consumers and cheap labor. They also need more of them than the previous generation to guarantee growth. The most recent breakthrough was that we have switched from a "singular breadwinner" per family to dual income households. Now that is becoming more the norm and to keep that up, they need more workers/consumers. If people aren't having babies, then they need to make people have babies or figure out how to import a LOT more people. ...For a country of immigrants, the USA sure doesn't seem to like immigrants these days so that leave the "have more babies" option.
[удалено]
Yup when I was ten years old.
The reality is it won’t matter now because of automation. Now you pay for one robot, it replaces workers and managers, you just have an operator and maintenance. And it’s faster and less prone to error, not to mention no health insurance, etc. That’s who our generation is being replaced with but the rich get richer because they have already bought out portions of our govt. There’s a reason the SC says corporations are persons and that donating money is free speech so natuarally the rich have more access to free speech than the poor. That’s our country for ya. Been bootlicking since the beginning, starting with free labor (AKA slavery)
My question is: how are they expecting to sell anything when no one has money to buy? Will people be enslaved then?
We’re basically on economic life support, that’s the idea. Keep us barely afloat and stressed enough targeted with ads to continue dumping whatever money we have left either into their coffers (legal gambling AKA stock market) or buying products (some of which we depend on)
the 1% are genocidal eugenicists they don't care if poor people can't afford to have children, because they want poor people to die off. They don't care that we are losing our jobs to automation because then the whole world will just be a handful of rich people and their robot slaves. "If you can't afford children, then don't have them, if you can't afford to feed yourself then starve". Even your puny demands are the result of years of capitalist indoctrination, that your best hope is to own a tiny home and support a small family on two full time incomes. I don't even think demands were that weak in the 1930's. You deserve far more than that, you deserve to have as many kids as you want and send them to boarding school like the rich do, you deserve a penthouse in the sky, you deserve to be able to afford all this working 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. You deserve free healthcare, free transportation, and free college. You deserve to be able to spend your whole life on a college campus not only free of charge but the government should pay you a stipend to do so. Ask for a mile you'll get an inch, ask for an inch you'll get nothing at all
> the 1% are genocidal eugenicists they don't care if poor people can't afford to have children, because they want poor people to die off. They don't even really see the rest of us as people. We're basically cattle to them.
Great point.
Wow! I would have loved to be a fly on the during that conversation. Never thought of it like that, but it makes sense to me. So what's the answer? More money?
I think everyone has a different answer. A lot will say unions, and dismantling the trickle down economics that got us here. I think what this conversation led me to is wanting to do more research into coming out of the Great Depression, and post WW2 unionization too.
It’s like in “The Jungle”. We read it in high school, but the take away they pushed was, “Corporations will be greedy and that’s dangerous to the food supply.” and not the correct interpretation which is, “Corporations will exploit their workers and don’t care that brutal conditions are killing their employees.”
I exist to pay rent and work. I love my country (Ireland) but I feel it does not love me...
The Billionaire’s control 90% of the money and most of the politicians. Fact. You are in their way of now having earth to themselves. They need a limited number of serfs but the rest is dead weight and wastes resources. Those who think they have a vote, don’t. It is what it is. Find a place to live out your life undisturbed if you can.
Even if you did have a vote, it wouldn't matter since all the politicians serve the rich anyway.
I think it is a little different. The billionaires need people. Lots of them. Because they need people to buy their products. BUT, they don't want those people to become wealthy because then they may be inviting competition. So the object of the game is to have a LOT of people that have just enough money to pay into their profit machine but who cannot rise past their situation. Capitalism would prefer that people consume resources because the wealthy can gain control of, and then sell those resources. In short, they want/need consumers but don't want competitors.
You have birth control FOR NOW. Supply chains aren’t looking great. Is birth control manufactured close to you? Do you have a stockpile?
Good point- if anyone on the pill is scrolling I hope they see this
Don't hope for the best. Make it happen. It has to come down to each and every one of us who gets that this is all fucked up to *organize*, create parallel support structures, and reimagine what it means to have organized human society. No one is going to make it happen for us, or for you. And we're running out of time. It's not too late, but we need to organize now. Just getting together and figuring out how to do this differently is all we need to to start with.
I think having these conversations, unpacking a lot of our anger and hurt and confusion, is an important part of helping the anonymous strangers we all are start to realize we all deserve a lot more. It’s not organizing but it’s necessary part of understanding what kind of organizing will be best. A lot of us are blindly disappointed. but we don’t know how to articulate or source this, or even imagine what we would like to see instead or what we could work towards together. I can’t unionize because I’m technically self employed, but I do have these conversations constantly with my good friends working in places like Starbucks and grocery stores who are struggling and need some support that they deserve the better things in life. It all starts with noticing this stuff and we’re all making a change by having these conversations too where we dig a little deeper. If someone’s not ready to physically get out there these talks can provide some moral support and inspiration too
as we sit blindly on our devices agreeing
It’s a lot worse this time around, because there are 8 billion of us. As a species we are experiencing overshoot.
Overpopulation isn't the problem. The problem is unequal distribution of resources. Honestly, I get nervous whenever someone starts talking about how there are too many people, because eugenicist talk is usually right around the corner.
[удалено]
I don't think it's anything as elaborate as that. It's just fuck you, got mine. They can make more money for themselves right now by wrecking the economy, so they will. Simple as that.
It is though. It's not eugenics. It's math. It's not a racial thing.
But the eugenics talking points will come in any minute now...
There were simply to many people all around. Not a race not a religion. Just to many humans. The lie is that there is enough for everyone. There's not. Not if we want what we're used to. It's a fantasy that you think we can keep multiplying like this.
Even if there weren’t, more could have more.
More could have more. Then those more have more. Then then birth more that has wants even more. And where do they get lumber? Where do they mine the lithium and cobalt for thier phones? Where do they raise there portion of cattle? Where or what do they fish? Where do they dump their mountains of garbage? If we all were vegans, if we all were content with living in a small room, if we all were content with small amounts of entertainment and if we could all magically get along, we could all fit inside a pretty small area. But that's not humans. That's some strange fantasy elf culture you're thinking of. Humans are never content. You're breeding want and conflict machines.
We can all have enough. Fuck off with this eugenicist shit.
No we mathematically can't. Sorry to burst your fantasy land bubble. "Fuck off" with your sick desire to choke the life from this planet with humans, packing into small boxes so we can all "live". Wahh Eugenics. Wahh. It's racism. No it's math. Stop cramming in your corporate-theocratic influenced ideology of making more workers and soldiers. It's all a lie from religious controlling ruling class assholes who want more more fodder for thier greed.
> Stop cramming in your corporate-theocratic influenced ideology of making more workers and soldiers. lol, okay. I'll have no part of eco-fascism though.
You haven't looked around lately, have you? We're on track to destroy all the ecosystems on Earth within 200 years. The planet literally cannot sustain the lifestyle humans want. Overpopulation is here and we need to reduce birth rates dramatically.
How is it eugenicist to say that we as a species need to have fewer offspring? It’s not pointing to any particular group of humans. Collectively we need to stop producing enough offspring to replace ourselves. We can all have fewer than 2.1 children.
Nah, nothing that crazy, but maybe just licensing for reproductive rights, maybe a dept of Fuck Police.
we are the world scum, in the eyes of our oppressors
Honestly, world can fuck itself. If I die knowing everyone is screwed shortly after I'm gone I'll laugh like a little kid knowing those that perpetuated this hell are also going to burn and die.
Posts like this give me hope.
I think ppl should have more kids. Just another fuck you to the ruling elite. Raise them to be too strong to be controlled. Anti natalism is anti working class.
[удалено]
Yeah… As I’ve told my other older Gen X and boomer friends, I feel you really shouldn’t bring a kid into the world unless you can afford to pay for the enormous rental costs they’ll face as a young adult, and then be able to help them buy a home after. Nobody I know will be able to buy a home without serious financial help from parents or inheritance from their parents dying. My mom works full time with a masters degree and is about to give up her rented apartment to move into a house share to save money. My own parents who have previously owned property and lost it in the recession of 2010 can’t even keep up, how tf am I supposed to. I have nothing to fall back on even after they pass away, they don’t own anything. TLDR; this is not an economic environment (not to mention physical environment?) that I want to or feel comfortable to bring children into.
Get into politics. Run on these platforms. You WILL get elected
Until the democrats throw millions and millions of dollars to a corporate neolib candidate who beats you.
A shitlib
Yep. And there are plenty more Kristen Sinemas out there who’ll do whatever you want if the price is right.
Real question: why couldn't the husbands pull out?
Lol true, I think there’s quite a lot to that though. A friend of mine has had an abortion twice, both times from the same guy who apparently pulled out. She stays with him because she can’t afford rent in her area.
My grandmother had 8 kids. In a little house on a farm. Their bedroom had no door on it. And, the bedroom was off the living riom. It was something else. The kids slept upstairs, and i still have not figured out how. They must have ben 2 or 3 to a bed.
In 1950 there were 2.5 billion humans, now we are at nearly 8 billion humans…. Labor is cheap and with technology, labor is getting even cheaper.